Big Talk About Small Business
Hosted by Mark Zweig and Eric Howerton. Our Mission is to inspire, empower, and equip entrepreneurs with the knowledge and insights they need to succeed in their ventures. Through engaging conversations with industry experts, seasoned entrepreneurs, and thought leaders, we aim to provide valuable strategies, actionable advice, and real-world experiences that will enable our listeners to navigate the challenges, seize the opportunities, and build thriving businesses.
Big Talk About Small Business
Ep. 68 - Big Talk About 2024: Highlights From the Year
Unlock the secrets of small business success as we recap the highlights of 2024, as voted by you, our dedicated listeners. We promise insights into the unique challenges and rewarding experiences of transitioning from large corporations to small businesses, where multitasking and resourcefulness are key. Meet Amber, an inspiring entrepreneur whose mission-driven business illustrates the highs and lows of entrepreneurship, from embracing unexpected challenges to finding freedom through unwavering dedication.
Discover how embracing change and growth can transform not just your business, but entire communities. We explore the power of early mornings and risk-taking in the entrepreneurial journey, and how new businesses can raise the bar for everyone around them. As progress charges forward, learn how to adapt and thrive rather than resist, especially when fresh ideas are the lifeblood of your neighborhood.
Building trust and valuing transparency are at the core of growing a successful business. We discuss the importance of bringing in expertise and the principle of contributing value before seeking rewards. By sharing stories of leadership and resilience, we highlight that mistakes are merely stepping stones to success. Join us as we express our gratitude to our remarkable guests and encourage you to continue engaging with us, sharing your thoughts and inquiries as we celebrate the spirited world of small business.
all right, mark, we're back again for another episode of big talk about small business this is gonna be a cool episode. We haven't done this before. No, what we're doing today is we are doing a 2024 recap of some of our more popular episodes voted by the listeners through analytics and downloads and engagement rates and such forth.
Speaker 2:Sounds good.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So what we're going to do is we're going to listen to these over again and we can make comments based on what they said and whatnot. So I think this will be kind of fun. It will be, I hope so. Maybe we can give even more advice off the advice, maybe. All right, let's roll bro. You got anything else you want to say about this?
Speaker 2:No, I'm ready to go buddy. Okay, let's do it.
Speaker 5:But that's what I tell a lot of young people.
Speaker 2:If they want to go work. Uh, they think they want to start a company. I said go work for one for yeah right startup.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because I learned a lot of things not to do, learning what not to do is every bit as important sometimes learning what hell yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I was like learning what not to do at other startup companies. I mean, I think it's actually a really good point in the sense of where if because a lot of our listeners have not started their own business Right they might be working with big companies.
Speaker 2:Or they might have inherited a business, yes, or they might work in a business and end up the owner of the business.
Speaker 1:That's right, yeah, but if you're thinking about starting up a company like my biggest thing that I've seen is actually hasn't worked well, or people that work for really large organizations and then they got excited to go start their own business without ever working for a startup.
Speaker 2:No kidding. Or it doesn't have to be a startup, but a small business. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They're used to having so many more resources, absolutely, and people at their beck and call. When there's nobody, you're the one dragging the trash can in every day.
Speaker 1:That's right, you know? No, that's right, man. And there's so many little distractions on starting a small business, like taking out the trash, like I remember Lil was about having clean bathrooms, like it's the most important thing to me in this entire company is having clean bathrooms. Thank, you.
Speaker 2:I love that. I always go in the bathrooms here. Are they nice, they're delightful. Great, they are delightful, they're light. Successful to me, man, yes.
Speaker 1:Because, like, I can't stand that. Yes, it's like an absolute sign of total disrespect. Yeah, but if you know, in a small but like guess what I do, I don't go to the restroom and I didn't write some sort of you know ideology on the wall that we have really clean, clean restrooms, you just do it. I, yeah, I do it. If I'm in there and it's not looking to its, to its uh, to its abilities, I clean it myself and then I go out and start complaining about it to the rest of the team. Yeah, you know, I get it, but you got to show up for that in a small business. If you've been working for walmart all your life, you know, I mean not probably didn't have to clean any bathrooms.
Speaker 2:well, I do think it's good advice to work for a small company before you start your own. You get to see how you've got to work in a variety of roles you don't have the resources and just how flexible people need to be in that kind of environment.
Speaker 1:And I think one thing on it too, is if you do go into business for yourself, the day that you decide to do that and, like, let's say, you quit your job, which that's a lot of pressure, right? You're quitting a big job that you had.
Speaker 2:You had a lot of security.
Speaker 1:You got paid A lot of resources and then you're going to be stepping into this small business realm and on day one, bro, it's like the gates are open and like if you don't know that you need to keep that bathroom clean and that you got to be the one to get that bathroom clean. By leading that example, I mean it could be pretty painful, pretty quick, and but if you work for a small business for a little while, you see that you could probably see that, yeah, see me cleaning bathrooms. Then you start your business, you know an, a, an empowered woman.
Speaker 7:That's like naming a company confident coffee roasters. I think one of the greatest things that we can do is look at like how can we also, you know, elevate women throughout our value chain? And so it just kind of started to really fall into place and the things that I really cared about, like I also had the freedom to do and I think it is weird to say that, because it's not like I was 21, you know, out of college and like trying to figure it out. I don't know why it was took so long to understand like entrepreneurship and ownership is freedom.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 7:Now freedom.
Speaker 2:It's a tether at the same time.
Speaker 7:Means many different things.
Speaker 2:Like when your toilet was overflowing. You had the freedom to fix that.
Speaker 3:I had the freedom.
Speaker 2:It's funny, we went back on toilets later. We are just potty centric During this whole show, it seems already.
Speaker 1:That was an awesome episode. I think she's just a rock star man. Yeah, amber's great. I love Amber, yeah, I mean, and what she's done. But I mean, I think one thing that really impressed me on that episode is how Amber has this deeper mission in what she's doing. Right, which man you know we've talked about this so many times this energy and this passion that you have to have in entrepreneurship, like it can't be about the monies. No, the money is an outcome. It's an outcome, yeah, but I mean her driven like she can wake up and you subconsciously recall that when you're dealing with problems in the business and you are able to push through because you have a greater mission than yourself and the money.
Speaker 2:That's the freedom she's talking about the freedom to implement your vision. Yeah, we may all work seven days a week or whatever, but I think it makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 1:There's a lot of freedom in that. I know I've felt a lot of freedom. It's basically an expression especially for you. I've seen you do that with your. You know, when you used to do your homes all the time I mean, like this was your you had an expression that you were trying to get out. Yeah, exactly, and it was a beautiful expression.
Speaker 2:And you're free to do that when you don't have anybody else telling you what to do. It's true, You're driving it baby.
Speaker 8:I see so much as a small business owner, having been in the 401k realm and in the employee benefit world realm. Small business owners have to wear all these different hats.
Speaker 2:Right, and we're not good at all of them, right, let's face it. I always found you know you got to get the specialists in. Whatever it is you need. Don't fool around with the generalists, whether that's lawyers, insurance brokers, all of them, okay.
Speaker 8:Yeah, I know that insurance agents are viewed as attorneys, used car salesmen and the scum on the bottom of the pond and I said just give me a chance. I don't know if it's that bad, but it is sometimes, and so I always just tried to say just, you know, give me a chance to explain what we do differently, if that makes sense, and then you make an educated decision if this makes sense for you on there well, obviously wasn't there in that episode, mark.
Speaker 1:No, why would you do a show without me?
Speaker 2:you weren't here. It's the only reason you were doing something else, but no it it does. Um, you know, I don't know what the point of that clip is, other than, no, I don't think all insurance sales people are bad and they do need to be specialized professional service providers. I mean, I just can't tell you how much bad advice I see from attorneys to small business owners who don't know what the hell they're doing okay, I think that's the point of the clip, the generalization, right, the traps that you can follow.
Speaker 1:I mean, and as a small bit, like it's almost like I made, I spent a lot of money, a lot of money wasted. Yes, because I didn't understand that, like, like the different fields of support that are out there for you, from cpas to attorneys and insurance or whatever the right kind of cpas are the right kind of attorneys that is such a big deal it is, I mean, and if you try to start your own business, you can just go use your attorney that helped you out in a civil lawsuit.
Speaker 1:You know, like it's, it's going to be devastating and you and you and you feel kind of like almost like trapped that there's. You don't know how to turn a different way, like. But it does require research. It does require you to ask other people, like mark, who would you use? Oh, I'm telling you for a deal transaction for my business, because you don't want to use the same one that set up your llc. They don't do deals bro.
Speaker 2:no, I hear you. It's so important and so many people don't realize that it's just like the people who call me up or homeowners and go, um, do you know? Um, I need a good handyman. Can you refer somebody to me? Like, what do you need a handyman for? Well, I need to replace my kitchen faucet and then I want to refinish the floor in my living room. I'm like, how about let's get a plumber to replace the faucet and let's get a wood floor company that does floor refinishing to refinish your living room floor? Well, I don't want to pay that. Okay, so we can pay twice. Now you can pay them to do it wrong. You're handyman, and then you can redo it all with somebody that actually knows what they're doing.
Speaker 1:It's a great example because that's what happens in business all the time Same thing. And it's so deceiving too. You know, in business because there's so many things like on the accounting side. Like you know, a CPA doesn't solve all your problems for your business. That's another trap. You'll go 60, 90 days. You'll be like what do you mean CPA? You're not watching my books, like I don't do that, you know, and you're like oh my God, you know.
Speaker 3:Yeah, telling you, telling you it was it was, it was money for jam, you know, and um, it was a great cash business. You know we made, we made really good money doing that and uh, that was kind of the plan. You know that was kind of the plan. You know it was my. My weeks were kind of backwards. It was like, you know, friday to Sunday and then during the week I was getting ready and trying to find markets and man, I'm just man, I'm a dog, you know I'd go for anything.
Speaker 1:All I got from that was I'm a dog, I'd go for anything. I love that man?
Speaker 2:Yeah, he was talking about building this popcorn company in New Zealand and working on the weekends and just hustling in order to be able to make it.
Speaker 1:Do you have to do that, Mark? Is that something that is a reality of entrepreneurship? I mean, seriously, do you really have to work over the weekend and at nights?
Speaker 2:I eric. I mean, do I have to, or do I? I mean, do I have to? Maybe not, do I absolutely? I mean, you know what I'm saying. I mean you understand that? Yeah, it's just. Yeah, it's like I swear, if I'm awake I'm working. I hate to say it, it sounds terrible, don't hate to say it, I think it's freaking championship man.
Speaker 2:I woke up at 6 o'clock yesterday and I swear to you I was still in my jammies at 11 o'clock because I was immediately working. I spent an hour and a half on the phone and email and text between 6 and 7.30 with one company that I worked for. And then I just went to call, call, write, call, write call. I didn't even have a time to go get myself cleaned up and get dressed for the day. You were just cranking it, man. I was cranking it, baby. I'm just cranking it, baby.
Speaker 2:I love it, man. And it's like the last thing I did, you know, before I shut the lights off, was respond to an email.
Speaker 1:You know I found myself like when I work on weekends or in the evenings or early mornings, is sometimes a really good one for me too, it is yeah, I mean, I can like dude. If I wake up at 4 am, don't even try to go back to sleep Like I don't know how many times I've had to relearn that lesson I know. You're right. I mean I'll toss and turn my brain. I mean, if I wake up, my brain's like You're up.
Speaker 1:You know it's like starting to figure some shit out, but if you can get up and those off times when everyone else is typically not working, what I like to do there is I do like to prepare, plan and try to make my coming days when I have time with the people that are at my team, how do I make myself superbly efficient? Yeah, you're getting ahead, getting ahead.
Speaker 2:Getting calendar getting meetings set. I understand totally. It's like the cleaning emails Working on those longer term initiatives that you don't have time to do during the week, yeah because, you're so busy doing the work of the business, yeah exactly right, man.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's it. So dog it, dog it, dog it.
Speaker 13:Give you with one thing, it's just try it. Just try it. If, thinking about it, I mean, I love hearing stories of people that said you know what I'm going to see. If this works, let's try something. And if it fails, it fails. That doesn't define you. It could be something, though, like when we started our business, we had no idea and you know, four or five years we'd be selling hundreds of thousands of orders. Yeah, you know, that wasn't on our radar, but we had the gumption to go let's try something and see if there is a possibility of something here.
Speaker 2:But amen, I agree, don't be a wantrepreneur.
Speaker 1:Do it damn, do it, hell yeah, just like nike right, exactly, mean, that's a really great saying because it's the truth, man. I mean you take, take the action. You know I had a friend that was trying to. That was an attorney for a firm you know, just kept going back and forth. Denver had really good experiences because he had this vision of how you should be practicing law. But it took him like five years to go do his own business and he was calculating, calculating, you know, running numbers, like for five years is it going to be okay? And I'm like bro, starting your business is like having a baby. You will never be ready to have a baby. You're never going to be really prepared for that. You'll prepare that until the day you die. Then you don't have one. But it's the same thing. If you have an idea and you have a desire for it, best way to learn is by doing Jump in baby. I agree, learn to swim, jump off the boat.
Speaker 12:Most of us really want to connect with the community.
Speaker 4:Next, to us.
Speaker 12:Want to engage and do something special and be that artist. We as a community is not to reject developers, but to embrace them, engage them, find the ones there, encourage them, provide policies, things that provide support. There's so many people developing, coming from all over the country that want to invest their money be an artist here. We have to be receptive to that. It's just right now we're all learning about how to deal with outsiders insiders how we're building this community, about how to deal with outsiders insiders how we're building this community.
Speaker 1:And what I'm really missing. You know that's a big deal because I think that a lot of you know, in growing areas, right Like you have an old way that you always did business. You know people did the same thing. And then you, if you have a growing area, like it attracts the outsiders it attracts outsiders.
Speaker 1:The next thing, you know, you have neighborhoods popping up and then you've got these businesses and then, a lot of times, the businesses that have been here a while have a really challenge of recognizing it, although they could embrace it. That's how you up the game.
Speaker 2:Up the game, man. Yeah, we've got higher standards. Now We've got these people coming in from outside that are doing things better. How?
Speaker 1:can we learn? Have from outside that are doing things better? How can we learn? Have a higher expectation and then provide that service and guess what will happen? You'll probably your business will do better, right you?
Speaker 2:elevate the whole area, you elevate the community, you know I've.
Speaker 1:I've figured out like so I was a naturalist, I'm always been I'm a big environment. I love the environment, I love nature and all that stuff. But I figured out a long time ago I'm like man. Why am I trying to like, fight, progress on a lot of things? Because you cannot stop it. No, it's never been able to be stopped.
Speaker 2:People always want to enlist me to help them stop something. I'm like you called the wrong guy, okay, yeah. I hate it when people are trying to tell me I can't do something Right? Okay yeah, I'm not going to get on that bandwagon.
Speaker 1:And here's the reality to it's not gonna stop like no one person can stop like.
Speaker 2:I can even see small towns that try to stop it if it does stop, then it everything else runs over it, and then they regret it exactly because they don't keep up. That's right. I mean, you can see the evidence of that right here in northwest arctic. Saw with certain communities.
Speaker 1:No, you totally can, and I mean like, and the thing is is like, like they're, it's going to surround you, then it's just going to engulf you, yeah. And so I mean like you have to be, like you can actually control the change a little bit better if you get along the right. I mean like you, what are you going to do?
Speaker 11:there's nothing you can do yeah, so jump in, man enjoy it really most excited about is the next step. This next month I'm bringing in a um, really talented creative director who had experience with cityscapes, had experience with writing uh, content for sam's club, so she's very seasoned and she's going to step in as hey. Can I help manage the direction of your content calendar? How? How do we work with ad partners and give them features where it doesn't all pay to play? You know? Sure, because at the end of the day, people need to learn something new about Fayetteville.
Speaker 2:I don't know what the moral of that story is, other than, as you grow your business, you got to bring in people that know something about what the heck they're doing. This is a media business, a magazine business, started by somebody with no real experience and he's done a great job, yeah, yeah, but you got to. As your business matures, sometimes you need real expertise. You know, you do and you got to. You got to know as the business owner what your weaknesses are.
Speaker 1:yeah, and be real with yourself on that. Yeah, absolutely, I mean there's some. I don't know if you do, you do and you got to know, as the business owner, what your weaknesses are. Yeah, and be real with yourself on that. Yeah, absolutely, I mean there's some. I don't know if there's really humility to that, other than it's just freaking reality.
Speaker 2:I'm inherently lazy, so I have no problem avoiding my weaknesses. It comes naturally.
Speaker 4:And it just. It's a different vibe when people want to be part of the company. Ownership has to be taught. The company's not worth anything if no one wants to own it.
Speaker 2:Amen to that.
Speaker 4:You've got people knocking at the door saying, hey, can I buy in next year? I said, well, the opportunity is going to go to the people that help grow the company. It's logic. You have to play hard, you have to be one of those leaders, and if that's the case, then certainly let's grow the pie, let's get you involved.
Speaker 1:You know that was one of my I think one of the more impacting episodes for me personally my business, you know it was it was that conversation about? It was really about open book management. I mean that that was just like it kind of helped, helped me see even more the value of that and I and I actually started practicing that really quickly after that episode uh, even in even more light to the company, and it's been, it's been positive yeah, it's so critical if you want to train those people and how the business operates so they can be future owners.
Speaker 2:You do have to share that information with them. But I also got out of that. Is they act first? Yeah, then they become not make me an owner and I'll start selling work. Okay, it's demonstrate that you bring value to the business. Then we can talk about expanding the pie totally. What comes?
Speaker 1:first, the action comes first yeah you render service first, then you get money. Like you said, money is the outcome. All that stuff is the outcome. It's very fresh, like I have met really talented, capable people that would be awesome to have on the team, but they're wanting to negotiate something in the beginning that is just absolutely 100% threatening, unrealistic. Unrealistic and threatening for me and the business and for the rest of the employees, sure, but people get so siloed in this and everybody's trying to play this protection game that it becomes like a total win-lose scenario. You't do win-lose scenarios. No, you can't. You know, if you want some equity in this puppy, come in. Yeah, grow this, make something happen.
Speaker 2:Make it happen, make it more valuable. Now, if the owner of the business doesn't recognize what you're doing, then you got to move on. That's it, okay, that's it. You're not going to force them into it, that's right.
Speaker 1:And if you keep coming across people that don't recognize your value, then guess what you do? You start your own business, exactly.
Speaker 6:So what you're looking for here is the green light, and until you get the green light, you have no business trying to sell anybody something Now. Somebody won't give you the green light until they answer those questions. You already hit them. Do I know you? Do I like you and can I trust you? So, mentally, every customer will ask those three questions before they feel confident to go forward with you.
Speaker 2:I mean matt's, just he's on it, man, I have been I it Ever since Matt gave me that. I try to teach all my students this idea. It's so critical. If you want to sell something, they got to know you. They're not going to like you. If they don't know you, yeah, they got to like you. And if they like you, maybe you can get them to trust you. And if any one of those things is broken, they're not going to trust you. And if they one of those things is broken, they're not going to trust you. And if they don't trust you, they're not going to buy from you. It's just such common sense but people don't understand it. You got to have the small talk. You got to get to know people personally. You've got to ask them questions and let them talk. If they do that, they think you're great. Yeah, okay, yeah, they know you because you ask them questions about themselves that's right.
Speaker 1:That's right, and I mean I think you know I was actually. It's funny, just like, even like yesterday I was talking to somebody in sales and they made it too complicated. Sales are not really that complicated. It becomes really complicated, you know, in bigger organizations, but even there it's really not that complicated. The best salespeople are the ones that just I mean they, they, they build a relationship and if they're genuine about that like if I approach you, about wanting to sell you something, I'm actually thinking in my mind will this be a benefit to you? Yeah, and if I believe that it is, then I'm going to try to come help you with what I have to offer believe that it is, then I'm going to try to come help you with what I have to offer.
Speaker 2:Of course, it sells, it's helping, it's helping it's it, but you know, and that's the relationship speaking of trust, though, okay, I didn't tell you this story, but in the last month or so, my wife and I've been looking to buy an rv. I've had them in the past, yeah, you know, so we, we finally.
Speaker 2:you know we're honing in on what we want. You know we want a motorhome. We ended up buying a diesel pusher, Tiffin, which is really a nice motorhome. Oh nice, used but mint condition. It's only 30 footer, which is really cool. That's actually you can get it in places.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we wanted a shorter class A, but anyway, we're looking at a motorhome right down the street here at a particular dealership and it was a certain price. Ok, it was low miles. So I go onto their site. It's a national chain. I go on their site to see where what other ones they have like that. They have one in Nashville for fifteen thousand dollars less. Oh wow, OK, with a thousand more miles on it. Yeah, Either one at 2000,. This at 3000. I mean it's new, All right, yeah. So the the sales guy in the sales manager I sent him a link to this I'm like how can you expect me to pay?
Speaker 2:what you're paying when I can buy one from your own company. Yeah, I'll drive 400 miles. Yeah, it's worth it for 15 grand. Yeah, okay, then I get this sales manager calls me up. Well, that one's got all these problems and yada, yada, yada. The floor needs to be replaced, the the blinds are bad. I look on the website. It doesn't say anything about any of that. Okay, so I call the place. Well, I can't get them to return my call. I call the nashville location I. They don't return my call. I call them again. They don't return my call. It was clear to me. You talk about trust. I believe the sales manager of this location talked to the sales manager at that location and said don't talk to this guy about yours, because I'm trying to sell them one year for 15 grand more.
Speaker 1:They just think about the money, okay, they think about the deal, yeah.
Speaker 2:So I didn't buy anything from them. But the trust was completely violated, completely busted, and you're not going to buy anything from them.
Speaker 1:Again, you're not going to buy anything from them, you're not even going even go to their store.
Speaker 9:You know, yeah, I'm out, but that's wow. That's how a lot of people fail at reselling is because they'll invest a bunch of money and then their products aren't selling and they get discouraged because they don't know what they're doing but, that was the same way with me, like I very first started out selling video games, but it wasn't like these kind of really nice video games, it was just like your basic 10 to 60 video game. Um, that I could get at pawn shops no one cared Dude.
Speaker 1:I love that episode.
Speaker 2:That guy is so brilliant. He's an awesome man.
Speaker 1:I need his information again because I got some stuff he might want to be hawking for me.
Speaker 2:He came over to my house and I sold him like four bins worth of stuff one night, did you? Yeah, it was just in my garage. I'm like I got Malle parts, rolls Royce, axle bearing removal tools, love it, and the guy's amazing, he bought it. He makes so much money. Of course I gave it to him all cheap. Yeah, sure, sure.
Speaker 1:But hell I got rid of it. Where else am I going to do with this stuff? I'm going to go donate it.
Speaker 2:Right, they wouldn't even know what I donated. No, but anyway, the guy is so brilliant.
Speaker 1:He's made so much money and he saves it and he invests it wisely and he's going to be a millionaire by the time he's probably 26, 27 years old in cash. And what does? What's his strength, what's his specialty? What's his brilliance? What's hustling?
Speaker 2:it is hustling man when he's telling you that about being at a estate sale at 3 45 am and a lawn chair. Yeah, I mean, there's a guy who's freaking, motivated, love it. People go, these young people, they're not motivated today no some of them are no, I I agree with that man.
Speaker 1:Like I, I think that that stigma, that stereo, whatever, you want to call? It I hate that because I disagree. I found some of the most impressive people that are much younger than I am. I'm like dude. If I was just a little bit of you, I'd be freaking rolling.
Speaker 2:It's so true that's reinforced to me every week. I was just talking to my wife and one of her friends who's also a professor at the College of Business, where I am about one of my students and I go this guy blows me away. Okay, he wants to meet with me, we sit down. He's so perceptive, he's always thinking ahead. So he took a job in corporate America. He's like what advice do you have? How can I, what should I do to get ahead? Okay, and then he's talking about they're talking to him about the technical path or the managerial path, because, know, he goes the technical path. I don't want to move out of that too fast. So I'm a manager and I don't really know what I'm talking about. At the same time, he goes the technical career path. It ends here, whereas the managerial path is way up here smart he goes what do I do?
Speaker 2:I don't dude, you're gonna have to figure that out, okay but I'm just saying the guy is thinking like that, love it, and he goes. I'm taking this job, it's going to be in Jonesboro. I don't know anybody in Jonesboro, he goes. That means I can work 60 or 70 hours a week with total liberation.
Speaker 1:Almost want to end this episode right there. That's the best thing I've ever heard in my life. I'm like you're right, that's why you're going to get ahead. That's it.
Speaker 2:man, I have no worries. So anyway, I mentioned this guy to my wife and her friend. Her friend teaches classes and has just thousands of students. She has a lot of online. She goes. I know that guy and you're right.
Speaker 14:He is amazing that's awesome, man.
Speaker 1:I love it. That's leadership right there, man. That is just driven leadership. I mean it's gonna make it happen. It makes me so. It makes me like enthusiastic as hell, right to come across those people.
Speaker 2:I don't worry about this guy. I think he's gonna be fine, he's gonna be. I think he's going to be fine, he's going to be all right.
Speaker 1:He's going to be completely fine.
Speaker 10:Just work harder, dude, on the 50 good jobs that you did. That's cool. You can brag about it all you want. You know the one they're going to talk about is the one that you didn't do. Worth the crap. You didn't plan, you didn't operate. Everybody in town will know about it quicker than you can blink it and blank. It's still a small town around here, but the 50 to 1 ratio so do 100 jobs. So when that one does hit, we're gonna be all right and the talking gonna be too loud. Too loud, you know. But it's not about mistakes you make, it's how you handle them. And I've earned more customers.
Speaker 10:Yeah, off of mistakes I've made than I have ever, not one time, just doing the job gives you a chance to correct it. If I do, if I do a perfect job, 95% of the time they're going to price shot me the next time I forget and send a number in.
Speaker 2:I would say this that is so profound, mm-hmm. In fact, the last time Matt Lewis was in here with his brothers getting ready to record their podcast that they do here. Yeah, I saw the three of them we. I saw the thread when we started talking about that. I'm like mistakes are great. It's a chance for you to demonstrate how you respond. You'll come out ahead if you do that right. In most cases, Totally, totally.
Speaker 1:You know, when we talk about that all my mind goes back to is me waiting tables back in the day. I loved that game so much. I know we talked about it, but I just there's something to like. There's so many potential mistakes that can happen in a restaurant dining experience yeah, but that challenge and you learn, oh, if I can, how do I deal with that? How do I do? How do I get that tea topped off? Man? And is that? Should I top the tea off? Because if they put sweetener in the tea, because if I go top it off with the unsweetened tea, it's going to dilute the sweetener that they put in there and that's going to piss them off.
Speaker 2:How about when they never give you the ice? The ice is all in the thing and you got like this much ice on top of your iced tea. Yeah, because they just keep pouring the tea in without giving you. It irritates the hell out of you.
Speaker 1:But I love the mistakes. I can remember like one of the biggest mistakes I made of that. I was like I had to been like 17 years old or something. I'm working at the Holiday Inn, in the restaurant in the holiday inn, yeah, and I'm in there like I was like back when Holiday Inns were nice.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, it was really. It's like the best restaurant in town, at the Holiday Inn I know.
Speaker 1:I remember it had the big round table in the corner where all like the city leaders, yeah yeah, the power table, the power table.
Speaker 1:They'd come in and drink coffee, right, and there was this old lady man. I don't know what she did, but she knew people right. She had a good seat. Everybody moved out of the way when she sat down. But I'd come in with their coffee and I was just tapping off coffees and stuff, and I came around hers one time, and I remember she put her hand over a coffee surface. She goes no, no, I just sweetened it the way I wanted it, no more coffee. And I'm like you know, but that was a huge mistake, man. I was so offended. But what I learned from that, though, was like oh hell, no, I'm never.
Speaker 2:You know, I'll never make that mistake again with that right and you, and you can always ask them would you like me to top it off? Exactly, but I learned from that.
Speaker 1:But now the rest of all my customers. I had a thing in my mind going I've made this mistake before, Not going to do that again. I'm not going to do it again. I'm going to ask you yeah, and that made me a better server.
Speaker 2:Of course.
Speaker 15:Then you were best. Yes, I was the best damn server that ever lived, mark. Fear of rejection is a little more prevalent today in our youth, and you know there's so many adages you fall down 99 times, get up 100. Iron sharpens iron. All those are saying the same thing and it's basically you're not going to learn unless you try and do and fail. Failure is a good thing if you use it for your growth, and the more you grow, the less you'll fail.
Speaker 1:We would never fail from the long-term sense. But you have micro failures along the way and you pick yourself up and keep going right. Basically the same thing we were just kind of talking about. Right, Call them mistakes is really what they are Exactly.
Speaker 2:Let's just be willing to make mistakes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, don't call it necessarily failure, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's like saying defund the police okay. It's along the same lines. You know what I mean. Yeah, yeah, nobody likes that. It's got a negative connotation to it. It does. Failure has a negative connotation, but I think.
Speaker 1:What Tanner was kind of talking about, though, is I think that maybe younger folks have heard the term failure Right Over and over and over again, like don't fail, you know, don't fail at this, don't fail at that, and again like don't fail, you know uh, don't fail at this, don't fail at that, and so there's like this analysis, paralysis, they're just risk.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm just totally yeah. How do I not fail? Yeah, and it's like well, you don't fail by not believing that you will fail. Yeah, you know, and not failing, that's how you don't fail, is you don't fail I think people got to think more about what's the worst thing that can happen.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, okay. And if you start always asking yourself that question, you're going to be more willing to do things that may not work out.
Speaker 1:You know, I agree, and I think usually my big driver is that if I don't do it then it's going to fail anyway. Yeah, a boss who has poor integrity treats people poorly.
Speaker 5:Your direct supervisor, your direct supervisor, that is the culture you're living in, right and so hiring again the right people, but the right leaders who will not only reflect but amplify the CEO's culture and morals and ethics and integrity and all these things. That is how you cascade it throughout an organization. So the bigger the company, the harder it becomes.
Speaker 2:Well, that's so true, but unfortunately a lot of people think they're who are below the level of the CEO, but at a high level they think their job is to show why the CEO is wrong. Yeah, okay. Well, somebody's got to tell the emperor he's got no clothes. You know that kind of mentality Like. I don't need that I need support here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that's what JS was talking about. Like in how you hire those leaders, right? Yeah, that biggest lessons I've ever learned in my life were like the leaders that you hire into the team because they can legitimately make or break the entire corporation. Boy, no kidding.
Speaker 2:It's so true.
Speaker 1:And they've got to be in line, and you know they've got to be in line. They've got to be able to be part of the mission of the company and they have to believe that you help the company, the company helps the team. Period, that's the way everything works. Hey, I know you guys are going mark's got a flight to make to go to some board meetings. Uh, board meeting. Oh, I'm excuse me, yeah I'm sorry, it's sorry about that.
Speaker 2:No I do have I got to go to new york today. It's going to be cold up there and rainy, but you're ready for that. But I'm ready. Um, it's a very exciting company that I work with up there and awesome man I've worked with for many years.
Speaker 1:I think that'd be a really good topic is to talk about boards.
Speaker 2:I think we should talk about that.
Speaker 1:We've learned a lot from you All, right this has been.
Speaker 2:fun, man it has been. There's so many great episodes and so much wisdom out there that some of our speakers have brought to us.
Speaker 1:I just want to say thanks to all the guests that have joined our show. I mean, it's cool to recap of that. I smile every time I see one of the guests on there and just kind of remembering that, yeah, they're all great people, they're just wonderful people, man.
Speaker 8:They really are.
Speaker 1:Thank you all for tuning in and listening. It's been another episode of Big Talk, small business Business. I like the way you came in when you wanted to.
Speaker 2:I'm being disruptive.
Speaker 14:Ooh, thanks for tuning into this episode of Big Talk about Small Business. If you have any questions or ideas for upcoming shows, be sure to head over to our website, wwwbigtalkaboutsmallbusinesscom and click on the ask the host button for the chance to have your questions answered on the show. Stay connected with us on LinkedIn at Big Talk About Small Business and be sure to head over to our website to read articles, browse episodes and ask questions about upcoming shows.